Active Mom Podcast: Pregnancy, Postpartum, Perimenopause, Menopause & Beyond

Send us Fan Mail Three years ago Joy Black came on this show to talk about climbing in pregnancy and postpartum, and quite honestly, we had almost no research to point at. She came back this time as a published researcher. Two papers, both in Sports Medicine, both with Dr. Margie Davenport's lab at University of Alberta. So we sat down and broke them open. The first is qualitative: 11 elite climbers, Olympic and World Cup level, on how they actually made decisions while pregnant. Not "is climbing risky, yes or no." Something much more interesting. They're assessing risk continuously, move to move, inside a single climb. The second one is big. 692 climbers. Roughly 64,000 hours of climbing during pregnancy. And it gives us numbers we have never had before. More than half of those climbers were never given a single recommendation about climbing during pregnancy by a practitioner. Not "here's how to modify." Not "here's what to watch." Nothing. And fewer than 40% were offered any rehab at all postpartum. We did not tell them no. We said nothing. Which they heard, correctly, as we have no idea what you do. 🔹 Why a fall in climbing is not what you think it is, and why that distinction changes everything 🔹 What the fall rate and adverse event rate actually were across 64,000 hours 🔹 The modifications climbers make on their own, top roping, vertical over steep, lower grades, not topping out 🔹 Controlled impact versus chaotic impact, and why a six week okay is not clearance for either 🔹 What to ask a climber in your clinic when you have never climbed in your life 🔹 The prolapse story that made me want to stand up and cheer, and maybe throw something I promise you, you do not have to be a climber to help a climber. Joy says it better than I do, and she says it about halfway in. Guest: Joy Black, climbing coach for pregnant and postpartum climbers, @climbingwithjoy, trainedbyjoy.com. Her first time on the show was Season 2, Episode 12. Research collaborator: Dr. Margie Davenport, @drmargiedavenport Studies discussed: 🔹Davenport MH, Ray L, Black J, McHugh TL. "An Informed Risk Assessment": A Qualitative Exploration of Elite Climbers' Experiences During Pregnancy and the Postpartum Period. Sports Medicine. 2025. 🔹Davenport MH, Osachoff L, Ray L, Black J, Cheung NKY, McHugh TL. To Climb or Not to Climb: A Cross-Sectional Investigation of Risks and Benefits During Pregnancy and Postpartum. Sports Medicine. 2026. The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there. Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now). Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it. Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

Send us Fan Mail Labor Day is in the rearview, the temps are finally doing what they're supposed to do, and this is the last rewind of the summer. Quite honestly, this is the one I wanted to close out on. When Margie came on for this one, she spent a good chunk of the hour telling me she couldn't tell me things. I'd ask, she'd dodge. I'd ask sideways, she'd dodge nicer. At one point I told her she was like a mystery novel and I just wanted to know what happened on the next page. She said she'd love to tell me, but she can't. She wasn't being precious about it. The Canadian postpartum guidelines were still in peer review, and she walked me through exactly why researchers go quiet. Until a paper has been through that process, she is not going to stand up and tell you something is safe. She also told me the first draft went out to postpartum women for feedback and came back with a note that it was going to cause a lot of mom guilt. So they went back and reworked the messaging. As a mom herself, that was not a message she was willing to send. Listening back now, with the guideline published and Margie already back on the show this past summer to walk us through it, this one plays completely differently. This is the hour right before. 🔹 Why the assumption that elite athletes have the best of everything is mostly wrong, and what happens to the ones who get told they're done at the first trimester 🔹 The athletes nobody has studied: the ones who wanted to come back and couldn't. Margie's team put out the invitation and got almost nothing back. 🔹 The one thing Margie says she'd go back and do more of, in pregnancy, in postpartum, and now heading into perimenopause 🔹 Postpartum and perimenopause showing up in the same body at the same time, and how little we currently have to offer either one 🔹 In Canada, 7% of all grant funding goes to women's health. The postpartum guideline got none of it. It got built by volunteers and undergrads. 🔹 The PhD student she says to watch, and why sleep may turn out to matter as much as exercise in this window Margie is one of my favorite people to just throw questions at, and this is her at her most honest about what we still don't know. Margie first came on the show back in Ep 38 in 2022, and she was back this summer on Ep 252 to walk through the guideline once it published. If this one leaves you wanting the answers, that's the episode with them. Find her on Instagram at @drmargiedavenport. One thing this whole hour keeps circling: screening before somebody hands you a program. Nobody can tell you what your body is ready for without looking at it first. If you're in the Arlington area, come see me in the clinic. If you're anywhere else, telehealth and virtual consults are open. This is education, not individualized medical advice. If you're having symptoms, get eyes on it. The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there. Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now). Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it. Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

Send us Fan Mail Somewhere between 2019 and now, "wait 12 weeks" turned into a rule. It is not a rule. It never was. I have been in pelvic health for 26 plus years, and right now I am watching that number get handed around in Facebook groups, on social, and quite honestly by a lot of professionals who are leaning really hard on it. I don't know that the foundation exists to do that. So this is a solo episode where I walk you back through how we got here. 🔹 Why the six week visit was a medical checkpoint, not a green light to run 🔹 What the 2019 UK document really is, and what it isn't 🔹 The 2024 international Delphi: 95 professionals, 12 countries, seven professions, and what they actually agreed on 🔹 Why "returning before 12 weeks is possible" is the line that keeps getting missed 🔹 The one in a hundred outlier, and why I will not shut her down 🔹 Gatekeeping. My own profession has been doing it, and I was a product of it 🔹 The 2025 Canadian postpartum guidelines, including why sleep got named a movement behavior 🔹 The four variables nobody puts on a timeline: sleep, fueling, support, mental health 🔹 What you control and what you absolutely do not 🔹 The line a kindergarten teacher gave me that I now use with patients If you are a mom trying to figure out when, this one gives you better questions than a date on the calendar. If you are a pro who has been leaning hard on 12 weeks, this one is an invitation to step back. And if what you really want to know is where YOU are right now, that is what the free Return to Run Readiness Screen is for. Balance, strength, impact. https://course.carriepagliano.com/R2Rreadyscreen IN THIS EPISODE (00:00) Why we are talking about 12 weeks right now (02:44) Where the six week mark came from (03:55) The 2019 UK document that was never a guideline (05:22) ACOG moved off six weeks in 2018 (08:50) The 2024 Delphi: what 95 professionals agreed on (11:16) The one in a hundred outlier (14:07) Gatekeeping movement in pregnancy and postpartum (16:08) The 2025 Canadian postpartum guidelines (18:06) Phase based instead of date based (20:26) All roads end up in the same place (22:03) Sleep (22:50) Fueling and energy availability (25:13) Support, childcare and logistics (28:32) Mental health, and what is going on physically (31:51) What you control and what you do not (39:28) Episodes to listen to next STUDIES MENTIONED Christopher SM, et al. Br J Sports Med. 2024;58(6):299-312. Deering RE, et al. Br J Sports Med. 2024;58(4):183-195. Davenport MH, et al. Br J Sports Med. 2025;59:515-526. Schulz JM, Thornton JS. Br J Sports Med. 2024;58:511-512. Christopher SM, Cook CE, Snodgrass SJ. PLoS One. 2021;16(8):e0255383. ACOG Committee Opinion No. 736. Obstet Gynecol. 2018;131(5):e140-e150. The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there. Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now). Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it. Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

Send us Fan Mail Shefali got hate mail. Not a snarky comment on a post. Emails. From other people who work with postpartum runners, coming at her over a single number in a consensus paper. The number was three. As in, after a minimum three week period of rest and recovery, some people might be ready to start doing some things. Drills. Not a 5K. Not a race. Some things. And she wasn't even giving her opinion. She surveyed clinicians and exercise professionals, coded what they said, and reported it back. That is the entire job of a Delphi. I'm bringing this one back for the Summer Rewind because there are so many new moms getting back to running right now, and the six week clearance conversation has not moved an inch. It is still the default. It is still a date instead of a plan. And I promise you it is still costing women the strength they walked in with. 🔹 What a Delphi study actually is, and why it exists when the research is thin 🔹 Where the six week rule came from and what it never accounted for 🔹 The consensus on what "postpartum" means, and on who gets to call herself a runner (you'll like this one) 🔹 Why detraining is a real cost and not a theoretical one 🔹 The bias every one of us carries: the moms who were doing great were never in your caseload 🔹 Shefali on her own two pregnancies, and what changed between them If you have ever been handed a date instead of a plan, press play. And if you're the one handing out the dates, I especially want you in this one. Which date were you given, and did anybody explain it? The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there. Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now). Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it. Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

Send us Fan Mail This one is going to ruffle some feathers. Hypopressives. Low pressure fitness. Whatever your algorithm is calling them this week. The theory has been the same since 1984: you do the breath, you hold the posture, your intra-abdominal pressure drops, and your pelvic floor switches on because of that pressure drop. Nobody had measured the pressure. Silvia Saraiva did. She trained 36 women who had never done a hypopressive in their lives, gave them two weeks to practice, then brought them into the Motor Function Measurement lab at the University of Ottawa with an intra-abdominal pressure sensor, EMG inside and out, and ultrasound running. Supine and standing. With the hypopressive posture and without it. The pressure didn't drop. The pelvic floor did turn on. Just not through the mechanism we have all been teaching. Here's what makes this conversation worth your time: Silvia is hypopressives-trained. She still teaches them. She has patients who seek her out specifically to learn them. She is not here to tell you to stop. She is here to tell you the explanation doesn't hold up. 🔹 What a hypopressive actually is, broken all the way down 🔹 The theory, and where it came from 🔹 Why the measurement tools matter more than most of us want to admit 🔹 What happened to intra-abdominal pressure lying down versus standing 🔹 How hard the pelvic floor actually worked, compared to a max contraction 🔹 Whether nailing the posture changed anything 🔹 If the pressure didn't drop, what IS causing the contraction 🔹 What Silvia tells the patients who ask her to teach them 🔹 Where hypopressives fit if strength is the goal Silvia Saraiva, BScPT, MScHK, is a pelvic health physiotherapist and researcher who completed her Master of Science in Human Kinetics at the University of Ottawa under Dr. Linda McLean. Her paper is out now in Physiotherapy, and there is a second one coming. When you learned hypopressives, or taught them, was the pressure drop the whole point? I want to know what you were told and what you think after listening to the pod! Saraiva S, McLean L. Intra-abdominal pressure and pelvic floor muscle activation observed during hypopressive exercises performed in supine and standing: An observational cohort study. Physiotherapy. 2026 Sep;132:102316. Silvia on Instagram: @thepelvicgirl The lab: @mfm_lab 00:00 Intro 01:00 Why we have never covered hypopressives 01:45 Meet Silvia Saraiva 02:25 Ottawa to northern Ontario 05:45 How far the nearest pelvic floor physio really is 06:55 Why hypopressives are big in Brazil, Spain and France 07:35 What a hypopressive actually is, step by step 09:00 The theory: pressure drops, pelvic floor turns on 10:00 Why how you measure it matters 10:50 The tools: pressure sensor, EMG, ultrasound, dynamometry 14:40 Crosstalk, motion artifact, and the problem with earlier studies 16:15 What clinicians miss when we skim to the conclusion 18:45 Who was in the study 21:05 Training beginners, and the expert who flew in 23:45 Are hypopressives easy? No. 28:15 The findings 30:00 Did position or posture matter? 31:30 If the pressure didn't drop, what is causing the contraction? 32:40 "You're just not doing it right" 33:30 What Silvia tells patients now 35:35 What about a high tone pelvic floor? 37:40 Prolapse and first line care 38:20 What she would study next 42:30 When the explanation is wrong but the results are real 43:40 Where to find Silvia The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there. Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now). Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it. Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

Send us Fan Mail Okay, so this one is a Summer Rewind, and I'll be honest with you, I went back and forth on which episodes to bring back. This one wasn't a hard call. The original aired in September 2022. I re-listened before we re-ran it and quite honestly? I'm still hearing every single one of these myths in clinic. Every one. A couple of years later. Rich Willy has spent 20+ years treating injured runners and publishing the research the rest of us end up citing. And the thing I love about him is that he opens by admitting he used to believe most of these myths himself. That's the whole reason it holds up. So I asked him to name the running myths he most wishes would just disappear. Stretch more. Strengthen your glutes. Land softer. You're running wrong. Here's what we get into: 🔹 Why stretching isn't the thing standing between you and an injury, and what to do with that warm-up time instead 🔹 The calf, not the glute. Running is a plantar flexor sport, and Rich tells you exactly where to spend your strength minutes if you only have a few 🔹 The bone force number that flips "just land soft" completely on its head (this one genuinely changed how I talk to runners) 🔹 Why your single biggest injury risk factor is the injury you already had, back in your 20s, in high school, in a body you don't have anymore 🔹 REDs, energy availability, and why a normal body weight tells you almost nothing 🔹 Return to participation, return to sport, return to performance. The three-stage model most of us skip right past 🔹 What actually happens when you tell a runner to change the way she runs And I promise you, this is a pelvic health episode. If the calf and the quad and the hip aren't holding up their end of the bargain, the pelvic floor is left holding the ball. You can hyperfocus on the pelvic floor and still completely miss the boat. So if you're a mom who's five or ten years out and still hasn't gotten back to running, this is for you. And if you're a clinician who's been quietly wondering whether the thing you've taught for a decade is actually still true... this one's for you too. No judgment. I've been there. Come find Rich on Instagram: @montanarunninglab The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there. Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now). Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it. Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

Send us Fan Mail Hilary Cairns races Hyrox at the pro weights, which means the farmer's carry is a pair of 53 pound kettlebells and she is essentially hauling her own body weight down the floor. She is the top ranked American in her age group. She also has three kids in their twenties and has been racing in DC since 1993. Now the part nobody handed her. She nursed all three kids for years and trained hard the whole time. She got a stress fracture after her second. Nobody sat her down and talked to her about how to eat while doing both, because back then almost nobody was having that conversation at all. This is the first in a new series where we sit down with the athletes in our own backyard here in the DMV. Hilary is a very good place to start. 🔹 What running through three pregnancies looked like when there was no information to work with 🔹 The stress fracture after baby two, and what she says she would eat differently now 🔹 The eating disorder she had in high school and college, what doctors offered her instead of answers, and what she wishes she had understood about long term cost 🔹 The commute stacking trick that made training possible when the kids were small 🔹 Going through menopause and having no idea what to attribute anything to 🔹 Raising a 26 year old competitive runner and hoping she gets the longevity without the glitches 🔹 Starting the Aging Athletically podcast with ultrarunner Michael Wardian, and the one question they keep asking older athletes If you are deep in the baby years doing the math on whether you get to keep any of this, Hilary is what the far side can look like. Not because she got lucky. She will tell you she has been fortunate on injuries, and then she will tell you about 30 years of showing up. Come find me after and tell me which part of her week you would steal first! CHAPTERS 0:00 A new DC series, and meet Hilary Cairns 0:58 Minnesota to DC, tennis to track to triathlon to Hyrox 2:22 Ranking the three sports she is doing right now 4:08 The workout you dread is usually the one you need 5:38 Ten kinds of gel and the old school one she keeps picking 7:36 What she eats after: chocolate milk and salty things 8:29 Running in DC, Rock Creek and the Tilden hill 9:48 Banneker track and the free Wednesday workout 10:57 What she has now that her 30 year old self did not 12:08 Her Cherry Blossom result this year 12:34 Running through three pregnancies with no information 15:39 What changed in 26 years of postpartum advice 19:12 A stress fracture after baby two and the fueling gap 20:37 Strength training before it was standard 22:13 Energy availability, REDs and lactation 23:31 Going through menopause and not knowing what to attribute 25:36 Why peers stop racing, and why she has not 27:23 Eight ten mile races, all within 80 seconds 29:12 Her full training week, including the 100 burpees 32:05 What training looked like when the kids were little 34:04 Commute stacking and being the low maintenance queen 36:05 The eating disorder in high school and college, and what she wishes she had known about REDs 39:17 Raising a competitive 26 year old runner 40:24 The mental piece she works on with her kids 45:13 Starting Aging Athletically with Michael Wardian 49:05 Feeling 30 at 55 50:41 Why Hyrox, and what a first race is like 53:41 Pro weights, world championships and top American times 55:01 Station by station: erg, farmer's carry, sled, burpee broad jump 59:25 Shoes, and why not Alpha Flies 1:02:08 The thing she never could have planned 1:04:51 Where to find Aging Athletically and Track Pack DC LINKS Pelvic floor assessment, Arlington VA clinic Telehealth PT and virtual consults All free resources and courses Hilary Cairns on Instagram Track Pack DC on Instagram Aging Athletically Podcast This podcast is education, not medical advice. Always consult your healthcare provider with medical questions. The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there. Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now). Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it. Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

Send us Fan Mail Relaxin is one of the first words you learn when you find out you're pregnant. Somebody hands it to you like a fact. Your joints are loose, your pelvis is unstable, be careful, this is just what pregnancy does. Here's the problem. Everyone has relaxin. Not everyone has pelvic girdle pain. This Summer Rewind is with Dr. Sinead Dufour, a Canadian pelvic health physiotherapist, researcher and co-founder of The Womb, and she has spent years trying to drag the actual state of the science on pregnancy-related pelvic girdle pain out of the journals and into somebody's treatment room. The systematic review on relaxin and pain has been sitting there since 2012. The authors of the guideline that made the relaxin story famous have since gone back and said they didn't interpret the data correctly. And moms are still being told their pelvis is coming apart. Sinead also gets into virtual pelvic health care (she was doing it well before 2020, and no, it is not the discount version), the new Canadian guidelines on obstetrical anal sphincter injuries, and the fact that cesarean birth is the number one surgery performed in Canada and was not in the physio curriculum until last year. That one still gets me going. 🔹 Where the relaxin theory came from, and why it will not die 🔹 What the 2017 antepartum guideline said we should assess first (it is not a joint) 🔹 The guideline update Sinead is leading right now 🔹 Virtual care: who it actually serves best, and where it genuinely falls short 🔹 Third and fourth degree tears, and the new Canadian recommendation to refer to pelvic health PT 🔹 Why she thinks women should understand their pelvic floor long before they're pregnant If you've carried pelvic pain through a pregnancy and been told it's just relaxin and it'll go away when the baby comes, trust me, there is more to it than that. And if you're a physio, this one is for you too. If you're pregnant right now and someone blamed relaxin for your pain, what did they tell you to do about it? CHAPTERS 0:00 Summer Rewind intro 1:19 Meet Dr. Sinead Dufour 1:38 The Womb, and how a twin pregnancy changed her career 4:46 Virtual pelvic health care before the pandemic 9:28 Treating with your hands behind your back 11:39 What patients say after the first virtual visit 14:37 Pattern recognition, distance, and the licensure compact 19:46 Snow days, sick kids, and moms who stop cancelling on themselves 21:43 Pregnancy-related pelvic girdle pain 24:21 Why pain science gets dropped the second the patient is pregnant 25:37 The relaxin myth, unpacked 31:35 The antepartum guideline update Sinead is leading 32:11 We underdosed exercise in pregnancy for years 33:51 Symptoms are not damage: FIFA, athletes, and diastasis fear 37:23 Sport, sponsors, and the fear of being pregnant in public 42:17 When postpartum and perimenopause overlap 43:56 OASIS injuries: what third and fourth degree tears mean 45:57 The new Canadian guidelines and the referral recommendation 48:17 What ACOG's fourth trimester guidance left out 52:11 How access to pelvic PT actually works in Canada 56:49 Cesarean is the number one surgery. It wasn't in the curriculum. 59:49 Rapid fire: podcast pick, trail walks, one piece of advice 1:08:13 What it means to be an active mom LINKS Pelvic floor assessment, Arlington VA clinic: https://carriepagliano.com/ Telehealth PT and virtual consults: https://carriepagliano.com/ All free resources and courses: carriepagliano.com Dr. Sinead Dufour on Instagram: dr.sinead This podcast is education, not medical advice. Always consult your healthcare provider with medical questions. The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there. Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now). Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it. Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

Send us Fan Mail This should not be revolutionary in 2026. They asked the women. Went out across Canada, asked postpartum women what they were actually desperate to know, and let the answers drive it. What came back was mental health and sleep. That's the 2025 Canadian postpartum guideline. Dr. Margie Davenport, PhD, was primary author on it. She's the director of the Program for Pregnancy and Postpartum Health at the University of Alberta, and this is her fourth time on the show. (Yes, we're already talking about Green Jacket choices) Quite honestly this one turned into a state of the union on pregnancy and postpartum exercise guidance. What we finally have. What changed. And the part she says nobody ever asks her about. The how. Not "is it safe." We have a LOT of that now. HOW do I use it. On Monday morning. With this patient. At mile two. On the pitch, in the moment, when you've got about four seconds to decide. 🔹 What the 2025 Canadian postpartum guideline actually changed, and how they built it 🔹 Why six weeks was never the right number, for anybody 🔹 The Get Active Questionnaire for Postpartum, and what changed about needing clearance before you move 🔹 The 140 beats per minute rule in PREGNANCY: ACOG put it out in 1985, pulled it in 1994, and women still hear it in 2026. Margie has more heart rate data coming. 🔹 Sleep and mental health, in a guideline instead of a footnote 🔹 Vaginal vs cesarean, and the gap researchers hadn't thought to split out 🔹 Informed risk: how you counsel climbing, soccer, cycling, skiing 🔹 Inside the IOC consensus meeting she chaired this year 🔹 FIFA's Female Health and Performance Project, free, with a pelvic health module in it 🔹 Margie as an athlete on her national team years, and the label she gives herself now (which I did not accept) Dr. Davenport's whole personality is: tell me why. And if you can't give her a good reason, she's doing it anyway. I love that about her. Press play. And then tell me, what's the postpartum question you've been trying to get answered that nobody will answer? TIME STAMPS: 00:00 Fourth time on the show 01:59 Why she left the lab for social media 03:32 The 140 rule that will not die 05:51 The question nobody asks: the how 06:44 Frameworks instead of hard timelines 08:44 Two C-sections, same day, two very different postpartums 10:48 2021: the first heavy lifting in pregnancy study 14:24 What the 2025 Canadian postpartum guideline changed 15:37 Sleep and mental health, because that's what women asked for 16:00 Vaginal vs cesarean, and the gap nobody had split out 18:17 The Get Active Questionnaire for Postpartum 19:54 The six week clearance problem 23:50 Informed risk 27:41 Three points of contact on the wall 33:58 Inside the IOC consensus meeting 38:03 FIFA's Female Health and Performance Project 43:06 Where physios can actually be effective 46:20 Margie on her own athlete journey 55:37 What's coming out of her lab The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there. Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now). Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it. Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

Send us Fan Mail Not everybody has time to sit down and read the whole paper. Not everybody wants to. I get it. But you do need to read beyond the abstract, so let's do it together. For this summer rewind episode, I'm bringing back my 2024 conversation with Dr. Rita Deering, PT, DPT, PhD, one of the authors on the two international Delphi studies and consensus statements on postpartum return to running. This is the one where we take the research apart. Rita walks through what a Delphi study actually is and how this one ran. Over 100 clinicians and coaches from around the world, three rounds, anonymous voting so nobody gets swayed by a name they respect, and a 75% bar for consensus. Then the piece that made these two papers different: once the panel agreed, the authors went and checked those recommendations against the published literature. Sometimes the literature did not cooperate. (Her explanation for why they couldn't just put everybody in one room together is one of my favorite things anybody has said on this show. You'll know it when you hear it.) 🔹 What a Delphi study is, and why that literature check after the vote matters so much 🔹 What everyone agreed on: a period of relative rest, gradual increases in duration and intensity, starting with a walk-run, strength training all the way through 🔹 The variables that have nothing to do with mileage: sleep, fatigue, lactation, fueling, hydration, mental health, social support 🔹 Where it got contentious: support belts, back extensors, lower extremity strengthening, and the honest problem that for some of it there just isn't literature yet 🔹 The hardest line in the whole paper. Somebody can be ready to return before 12 weeks AND still deserve protected parental leave. Both are true. 🔹 Why so many people getting this care are self-referred and paying out of pocket, and who that leaves out 🔹 Screening for REDs in a lactating athlete, when a missing period may be completely normal 🔹 The question that lives in my DMs: does running early postpartum increase your risk of prolapse? Both consensus statements were selected as editor's choice and are open access, so when we're done you can go read them yourself. No paywall, no institutional login, no favors required. Rita's on Instagram at @ritadeeringphd. If you could get one research question answered tomorrow, funding no object, what would you ask? The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there. Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now). Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it. Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

Send us Fan Mail Meghan Rabbitt has been a health journalist for 25 years. And the thing she said to me about reporting this book was: why don't I know this? If she didn't know it, what are the rest of us working with? Meghan writes about women's health for Women's Health, Oprah Daily, Prevention, and Maria Shriver's Sunday Paper. Her book, The New Rules of Women's Health , came out of years of interviews with the people actually doing the research. Her phrase for what she wants for all of us is that we become our own health journalists. 🔹 Your pregnancy history is heart information. Preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, even recurrent miscarriage. Pregnancy is the heart's first stress test, and the results don't expire when the baby arrives. 🔹 The lifetime breast cancer risk number you can calculate yourself. Meghan ran hers, brought it in, and that is the only reason she got her first MRI. 🔹 Why joining a research study can mean free care. She got a thousand dollars of genetic testing out of one. 🔹 Vaginal estrogen, and the applicator that was clearly invented by a dude. Zero instructions in the box. I spend real time counseling people through this. 🔹 What happened when she finally went to pelvic floor PT, and why "just do your Kegels" was never an assessment Something I say on air and mean: ask us. We will talk to you for days. Nobody has to pry this out of us. What questions have YOU been waiting to have answered? Meghan's book: newrulesofwomenshealth.com · Instagram: @MeghanRabbitt The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there. Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now). Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it. Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

Send us Fan Mail Prolapse might be the single most fear-loaded word in postpartum health. Not because of what it is. Because of how little anybody tells you about it. This week we're rewinding to one of our season one conversations, with Dr. Cheryl Iglesia, MD, urogynecologist here in Washington DC and one of the very first mentors I had in pelvic health. My first pelvic health job was at National Rehab Hospital back in 2001, and a couple days a week I was over in her office with absolutely no idea that I was standing next to a LEGEND in the field. (I figured that out later. Much later.) Here's what I want you to hear in this one. She says out loud that part of being a good surgeon is knowing when NOT to operate. Then she spends the rest of the hour showing you what that actually looks like. 🔹 What prolapse is, and how urogynecologists actually grade it 🔹 Why "elective" does not mean "cosmetic" 🔹 How much bigger conservative care is than most people realize: pelvic floor PT, pessaries, local hormones, bulking agents 🔹 What changed in prolapse surgery over 30 years, and the honest version of the mesh story 🔹 The average age of a prolapse surgery patient, which is younger than you're picturing 🔹 Why two women with the same exam can have completely different symptoms, and what muscle tone has to do with that 🔹 How to tell whether the provider in front of you is actually listening If you've been handed a diagnosis and a surgery date and not a whole lot in between, this is the conversation I want in your ears. You are not doomed to a life in an armchair. You have options, and you're allowed to ask for all of them. Which option did nobody explain to you? ABOUT OUR GUEST Dr. Cheryl Iglesia, MD, FACOG, FPMRS is Director of the Section of Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery at MedStar Washington Hospital Center and Director of the National Center for Advanced Pelvic Surgery at MedStar Health. She is also Professor of Obstetrics/Gynecology and Urology at Georgetown University School of Medicine, and is double board-certified in Ob/Gyn and female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgery with more than 30 years in the field. Find her on X at @cheryliglesia. Free resources for pregnancy, postpartum and perimenopause are at carriepagliano.com. Time Stamps 1:00 introduction 3:15 fear surrounding pelvic organ prolapse 10:00 conservative care before surgery 18:14 pelvic floor prolapse or decreased tone 26:45 recommendations for getting additional care 28:45 tissue healing and RED-S 30:10 PTs collaborating with surgeons CONNECT WITH CARRIE IG: https://www.instagram.com/carriepagliano/ Website: https://carriepagliano.com CONNECT WITH CHERYL IG: https://www.instagram.com/cbiglesia/ Website: https://www.medstarhealth.org/doctors/cheryl-bernadette-iglesia-md The Active Mom Podcast is A Real Moms' Guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond for active moms & the professionals who help them in their journey. This show has been a long time in the making! You can expect conversation with moms and professionals from all aspects of the industry. If you're like me, you don't have a lot of free time (heck, you're probably listening at 1.5x speed), so theses interviews will be quick hits to get your the pertinent information FAST! If you love what you hear, share the podcast with a friend and leave us a 5 start rating and review. It helps us become more visible in the search algorithm! (Helps us get seen by more moms that need to hear these stories!!!!) The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there. Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now). Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it. Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

Send us Fan Mail "It is probably nothing." The swelling is probably the third trimester. The breathlessness is probably the stairs. The ache in your calf is probably that run you should not have done. And most of the time, all of that is exactly right. Most of the time is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Dr. Rachel Rosovsky is a hematologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she has spent twenty years on blood clots, and she co-authored the first ever AHA/ACC guideline on acute pulmonary embolism. The American Heart Association reached out about this one, and I said yes immediately, because this is the conversation I do not think most of us have ever actually had. 🔹 What a blood clot actually is, explained the way a former math and science teacher explains it 🔹 Why the symptoms of a clot and the symptoms of a normal pregnancy look almost identical 🔹 The risk factors worth raising before you are pregnant, not after 🔹 Why the postpartum window is the highest risk stretch, and also the one with the fewest appointments 🔹 Why the standard D dimer cutoff does not work in pregnancy, and what the guideline uses instead 🔹 Whether imaging is actually off limits when you are pregnant, and the honest answer 🔹 Blood clot history and hormones later on, including what the evidence says about the patch 🔹 Dr. Rachel Rosovsky's rule: take it out of your hands and put it in mine This is not an episode about being afraid of your body. It is an episode about being allowed to ask a question without needing a good enough reason first. Most of the women in the largest survey we have on this were never told what to watch for. That part is fixable. That is the whole reason this conversation exists. Guest: Dr. Rachel Rosovsky, MD, MPH, hematologist, Massachusetts General Hospital. With thanks to @american_heart. Time Stamps 0:00 introduction 3:10 from math teacher to hematologist 6:13 having a baby during med school 10:10 choosing hematology 12:31 explaining blog clots 17:11 addressing the guidelines for pregnancy 20: are you at higher risk if you’re pregnant? 24:41 potential problematic symptoms 31:47 seeing a rise in risk postpartum 35:53 where to seek care 40:23 what care can look like 47:12 looking ahead to perimenopause and menopause 52:50 follow your intuition CONNECT WITH CARRIE IG: https://www.instagram.com/carriepagliano/ Website: https://carriepagliano.com Course waitlist: https://course.carriepagliano.com/RSAWL R2R Screen: https://course.carriepagliano.com/R2Rreadyscreen CONNECT WITH RACHEL: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-rosovsky Website: https://www.massgeneral.org/doctors/17898/rachel-rosovsky Guidelines: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41712898/ The Active Mom Podcast is A Real Moms' Guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond for active moms & the professionals who help them in their journey. This show has been a long time in the making! You can expect conversation with moms and professionals from all aspects of the industry. If you're like me, you don't have a lot of free time (heck, you're probably listening at 1.5x speed), so theses interviews will be quick hits to get your the pertinent information FAST! If you love what you hear, share the podcast with a friend and leave us a 5 start rating and review. It helps us become more visible in the search algorithm! (Helps us get seen by more moms that need to hear these stories!!!!) The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there. Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now). Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it. Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

Send us Fan Mail You leave the hospital with a healthy baby, a folder of paperwork, and zero mention of the fact that your estrogen just went from about 3,000 to almost nothing. That is where this conversation starts. In 2022, I sat down with Dr. Rachel Rubin, urologist and sexual medicine specialist, back in season one, long before she became the person everyone quotes about hormones. I've known her since she walked into the PT department at Georgetown as a resident and asked if she could shadow somebody and learn about Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy. This is her before the rest of the world caught up. We're rewinding it now because almost everything she predicted in this episode has since happened. 🔹 The estrogen arc, in actual numbers: baby, teenager, cycling, pregnant, postpartum 🔹 Why breastfeeding puts you in a menopause-like state, and what that does to tissue 🔹 Why the bladder and urethra are full of hormone receptors nobody talks about 🔹 What to say when you're told to use more lubricant and wait until you're done nursing 🔹 Birth control, IUDs and local hormones: what actually interacts with what 🔹 The 2000s study that scared a generation off hormones, and how badly it was reported 🔹 The postpartum visit she wishes every woman got, mirror included Since we recorded, the FDA moved on the estrogen warning label and the AUA published its first guideline on genitourinary syndrome of menopause. Rachel was already saying all of it into my microphone. Come hear where it started. A correction on my intro: I say "FDA approval" for local vaginal estrogen in the open, and I want the record straight. Vaginal estrogen was already approved. What changed, in November 2025, is that the FDA moved to remove the black box warning from estrogen products, the warning that scared a generation of women and their doctors off it. The approval was never the problem. The label was. This episode is education, not medical advice. If you want a clinician who actually knows this material, The Menopause Society keeps a practitioner finder at menopause.org. Time Stamps 1:00 introduction 4:01 hormone health and changes 11:10 advocating for yourself 17:30 hormones and the urinary tract 21:30 HRT misconceptions 27:45 testing and perimenopause 29:30 advice for moms CONNECT WITH CARRIE IG: https://www.instagram.com/carriepagliano/ Website: https://carriepagliano.com CONNECT WITH RACHEL IG: https://www.instagram.com/drrachelrubin/ Website: https://www.rachelrubinmd.com/ The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there. Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now). Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it. Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

Send us Fan Mail There's a thought a lot of moms have had and almost none of them have said out loud. Maybe it was an image of dropping the baby. Maybe it was something worse. And the second it showed up, the next thought was: what is wrong with me? Dr. Vanessa Komarek is a psychologist who specializes in trauma and PTSD recovery, a powerlifter, and a mom of two under two. She came on to talk about mental load and we ended up somewhere much more honest: birth trauma, intrusive thoughts, and why so much well-meaning postpartum advice lands flat. 🔹 What mental load actually is (the cognitive part and the emotional part nobody names) 🔹 What "birth trauma" includes, and why it's broader than most people think 🔹 What's a normal reaction after a hard delivery, and the signals that it's worth reaching out 🔹 Intrusive thoughts: what they are, why fighting them backfires, and what actually helps 🔹 Why "sleep when the baby sleeps" and "take time for yourself" fall flat for so many women 🔹 The trade-offs nobody admits are baked into "balance" 🔹 All-or-nothing thinking, exercise snacks, and Vanessa's phrase for it: embracing messy action 🔹 The pelvic health parallel: what happens when the brain decides the body is fragile This one is worth your time whether you're in it right now or 15 years past it. And if any of it lands a little too close, that's information, not a verdict. Resources mentioned: Postpartum Support International: postpartum.net · HelpLine 1-800-944-4773 (call or text) · free online support groups and a provider directory If you are in crisis in the US, call or text 988. Find Vanessa on Instagram: @heavy_lifting_psychologist This podcast is for education and is not medical advice. Please loop in your own provider. Time Stamps 0:00 introduction 6:07 talking about mental load 9:48 what got Vanessa into psychology 12:55 helping moms deal with trauma and expectations 19:55 ignoring the bad advice 23:48 the athlete identity 28:17 balance is a myth 35:58 helping moms overcome perfectionism 37:41 what she has learned in her journey 45:19 being an active mom CONNECT WITH CARRIE IG: https://www.instagram.com/carriepagliano/ Website: https://carriepagliano.com Course waitlist: https://course.carriepagliano.com/RSAWL R2R Screen: https://course.carriepagliano.com/R2Rreadyscreen CONNECT WITH VANESSA: IG: https://www.instagram.com/heavy_lifting_psychologist/ Website: www.adaptpsych.org The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there. Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now). Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it. Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

Send us Fan Mail "I don't have enough milk." It's the first place a new mom's brain goes when the baby fusses, wakes early, or pops off the breast. And when you add workouts back into the mix? The doubt gets louder. This week's Summer Rewind brings back one of my favorite conversations, with my longtime friend (and former neighbor!) Kelly Kendall, RN, IBCLC, aka @thebalancedboob. Kelly was an L&D nurse who thought she had breastfeeding figured out. Then she became a mom. Tongue ties, mastitis, postpartum anxiety, all of it. That story is exactly why she does what she does now. We get into: 🔹 Why "I must not have enough milk" is usually the wrong conclusion (and what's actually normal) 🔹 The real answer to "will exercise mess with my supply?" 🔹 Fueling for lactation AND training: calories, protein, and why this is NOT the season for a deficit 🔹 The logistics nobody warns you about (pumping in the car counts as a win) 🔹 The hardest part of all: believing you deserve time to move your body If you're trying to nurse a baby and get back to the workouts you love, this one will take a weight off your shoulders. Press play. Find Kelly on Instagram @thebalancedboob or at thebalancedboob.com Time Stamps 1:00 introduction 4:19 common issues and struggles 9:15 where moms struggle when starting to add in workouts 11:50 nutrition advice for breastfeeding moms 14:15 additional advice for moms CONNECT WITH CARRIE IG: https://www.instagram.com/carriepagliano/ Website: https://carriepagliano.com CONNECT WITH KELLY IG: https://www.instagram.com/thebalancedboob/ The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there. Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now). Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it. Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

Send us Fan Mail You've heard it. Maybe you've said it. "Your pelvic floor is too tight." It's everywhere right now — on the socials, in the clinic, out of the mouths of people who've never assessed a pelvic floor in their life. But here's the question almost nobody stopped to ask: can we actually feel the thing we keep confidently naming? Researcher Gosia Starzec-Proserpio, PT, PhD, just did the work to find out — across 528 women. And her answer is more interesting (and more freeing) than either side of the internet fight wants it to be. I got to sit down with Gosia — 12 weeks postpartum, "just coming out of the darkness into the light," her words — to talk about the study that went a little viral, and what it actually means for the person on your table. 🔹 What "tone" even means (and why it meant nothing to her as a new clinician) 🔹 The single biggest mistake we make: treating "pain" and "tight" as the same word 🔹 Palpation vs. ultrasound vs. dynamometry — three tools, three answers, and why that's a feature, not a flaw 🔹 Where our fingers are genuinely good — and where they quietly aren't 🔹 Why you can't get "fixed on the number," even when we love a good number 🔹 The pregnancy nobody warns you about being harder than postpartum This one's for the clinicians who want to sharpen how they assess and explain tone — and for anyone who's been handed a label they've been carrying ever since. Come nerd out with us. Education, not individualized medical advice — loop in your own pelvic floor PT for what's true for your body. Time Stamps 0:00 introduction 3:56 quick fire questions 9:43 troubles breastfeeding 18:55 muscle tone explained 21:54 explaining the research 25:35 communicating with patients 33:51 comparing different measurement modalities 45:53 addressing personal biases 49:11 changes in clinical practice CONNECT WITH CARRIE IG: https://www.instagram.com/carriepagliano/ Website: https://carriepagliano.com Course waitlist: https://course.carriepagliano.com/RSAWL CONNECT WITH GOSIA: IG: https://www.instagram.com/starzecproserpio_phd/ Linked In: www.linkedin.com/in/mstarzec Research: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Malgorzata-Starzec-Proserpio?ev=hdr_xprf The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there. Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now). Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it. Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

Send us Fan Mail If you've ever accepted leaking as the toll you pay to keep running, this one's going to reframe it. Dr. Linda McLean (@mfm_lab) is one of the foremost researchers on the pelvic floor and urinary incontinence — a professor and Chair in Women's Health Research at the University of Ottawa. In this Summer Rewind, we cut through what the science actually shows about why running-induced urinary incontinence happens… and where popular advice for active moms gets it wrong. We get into pelvic floor morphology, how running may load and change those structures, and what the evidence says about interventions — including pessaries and other intravaginal support devices for runners who leak. Linda also unpacks the difference between evidence-based and evidence-informed , and how to break down the barriers keeping women from exercise. Leaking when you run is common… but common doesn't have to mean permanent. Always work with your own pelvic floor PT and maternity provider — this conversation is education, not individual care. Time Stamps 1:00 Introduction 3:58 bio feedback in pelvic PT 6:46 morphology paper 16:41 the roll strength plays 21:15 connecting clinical findings to research 32:10 intra-abdominal pressure 34:50 different causes of urinary incontinence 40:20 supportive devices 44:29 elongation of the pelvic floor CONNECT WITH CARRIE IG: https://www.instagram.com/carriepagliano/ Website: https://carriepagliano.com CONNECT WITH LINDA IG: https://www.instagram.com/mfm_lab/ Website: www.mfmlab.ca X: @mfmlab Facebook: @mfmlabuottawa The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there. Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now). Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it. Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

Send us Fan Mail Melanie Cote spent years believing runners were a certain kind of person — thin, disciplined, elite — and she wasn't it. So when a coworker organized a 5K, she showed up to cheer instead of run, too embarrassed to try. A year later, she crossed that same start line. Today she's a half-marathoner who runs as @the.curvy.runner, and her story is for every mom who's ever thought "I'm not a runner." Carrie and Melanie get into starting couch-to-5K in your late 40s, why consistency beats performance, the gear struggles nobody warns curvy runners about, running through perimenopause, and letting go of the diet-culture rules we grew up with. It's a conversation about giving yourself permission — to take up space, to take the trip, to be the mom you're proud of. Time Stamps 0:00 introduction 5:08 how our relationship with running has changed 8:43 separating running from weight loss 11:29 becoming more active as kids get older 14:56 being flexible to be consistent 19:55 being creative with winter running 25:32 finding community in running 29:30 deciding to do a Disney half marathon 34:02 running as a curvy woman 43:13 dealing with hormonal changes 48:40 quick hit questions CONNECT WITH CARRIE IG: https://www.instagram.com/carriepagliano/ Website: https://carriepagliano.com Course waitlist: https://course.carriepagliano.com/RSAWL CONNECT WITH MELANIE: IG: https://www.instagram.com/the.curvy.runner/ Website: www.thecurvyrunners.com The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there. Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now). Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it. Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

Send us Fan Mail Bringing this back because the "what exercises should I actually be doing?" question never gets old. Johnson cuts through the noise on rehab and strength work for runners — the movements that move the needle versus the filler. Practical, specific, and easy to act on this week. Today I speak with Chris Johnson, physical therapist, coach, author, teacher, consultant, and multiple-time Kona qualifier. He is also the creator of The Run Well, an online membership platform and community with a mission to fast-track clinicians, coaches, and trainers, who are looking to specialize in working with runners. We talk about: -the love of running -exercises for runners -utilizing the power of walking -slowing down movements to evaluate -altered movement patterns from injuries -figuring out what’s heavy enough -using fundamental movements -hitting benchmarks before returning to running -similarities in returning to run after injury and postpartum Time Stamps 1:00 introduction 3:55 mistakes everyday runners make 7:40 providing exercises to runners 13:30 moving past the fear of old injuries 17:34 demystifying injury recovery 20:30 figuring out the right weight 27:40 top exercise recommendations 37:00 differences between working with men and women 44:35 Run Well Program CONNECT WITH CARRIE IG: https://www.instagram.com/carriepagliano/ Website: https://carriepagliano.com CONNECT WITH CHRIS IG: https://www.instagram.com/chrisjohnsonthept/ Website: https://chrisjohnsonpt.com/ The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there. Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now). Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it. Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌